Desolation Point by Andrew Puckett

Author:Andrew Puckett [Puckett, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-14T07:00:00+00:00

14

‘Enjoy your meal?’ asked Sarah.

‘Mm? Oh yes, very much, thanks.’

‘More than you expected to, I’ll bet.’

I grinned back at her. ‘I’ll not deny it.’

‘Liz excels at this sort of thing. She trained as a food scientist.’

‘Really? Does she do it professionally?’

‘She did, before she married Jonathan.’

At this moment the food scientist came back in. ‘How are you doing, Jonathan?’

‘I can’t find it,’ he said in an undertone.

‘It’s in the fridge. Didn’t you look?’

‘Of course I looked in the fridge ...’

‘It’s all right, I’ll take over now. Perhaps you’d put the bowls out.’

I watched her as she reached into the bottom of the fridge, took out a large basin and bought it to the table.

‘Raspberry Pavlovina,’ she announced. ‘Like Pavlova, but with Greek yoghurt instead of cream.’

I’ve always disliked Pavlovas – the meringue’s too sweet and the cream too sickly – but like the main meal, this was delicious. The sweetness of the meringue was perfectly offset by the sharpness and sourness of fruit and yoghurt. I told her so.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And I haven’t thanked you yet for the trouble you took showing Sarah round your station. Especially considering the nature of our group.’

Thinking how nice it was of her to thank me so nicely for something I hadn’t done for her, I said, ‘I enjoyed it.’ Well, some of it. ‘It’s our policy to be as open as we can with everyone.’

‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Since you’re here, Michael, I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind if we were to ask you one or two questions about your work. Try out some ideas on you. In your professional capacity.’

‘No,’ I said, knowing I couldn’t refuse. ‘I don’t mind.’ The truth was, I was surprised she’d chosen to bring it up like this, especially after what Sarah had said to me.

I’d thought her the type who’d regard it as de rigueur to keep away from the subject.

‘Jonathan darling, would you be an angel and make us some coffee?’ She looked round. ‘I take it we’d all like coffee?’

Heads were nodded around the table. Sarah rose and collected the pudding bowls and took them over to the sink.

Liz said, ‘Sarah was telling us after her visit how Somerset Nuclear Electric has a good deal of equipment in common with coal and gas fired stations.’

‘That’s true to an extent,’ I said. ‘The turbines, generators and condensing systems are all much the same.’

‘The reason I’m asking this question is that we in WANT, unlike some of our friends in the Green Party, accept the need for energy generation –’ she looked round for agreement – ‘and we’d hate to see all the effort put into building the station go to waste. Would it not be feasible to convert it to coal or gas firing?’

‘I’d need to think about that,’ I said slowly. What I was actually thinking was that maybe de rigueur had nothing to do with it; maybe this was Liz’s way of taking my mind off Cat.

‘I’d have thought it a

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